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September is here with another month of heat and heavy rain. This month is the height of hurricane-season, so tropical rains and wind are likely. It looks like Hanna will stay east but Ike and Josephine may come this way. Remember all of the hurricane preparation and clean up tips to help you through this period.

Also, keep a close eye on your lawn right now. We had some very hot dry periods followed by some very wet weather. These climatic changes are perfect for the breeding of new generations of chinch bugs. They like to lay their eggs when it is dry and then the eggs hatch with it rains.

Watch for the telltale yellowing followed by brown spots. Part the blades of grass to find the little black bugs with white wings running in the soil or on the base of the blades. The newly hatched bugs are orange.

Grubs are also very active right now. Areas of your lawn that look water stressed may have grubs actively eating the roots of the grass. Grab a handful of grass in these areas and pull on it. If it lifts away from the soil with no resistance from the roots, you probably have grubs. A little digging in the soil will usually produce a fat, white grub lying in a c-shaped position. Grubs come to the surface to feed when the soil moisture is high, as it is after significant rain.

And finally, stressed turf is more susceptible to diseases such as brown patch, gray leaf spot or root rot. Brown patch affects the lawn in circular patterns and the blades can be easily separated from the crown or root area. Leaf disease causes the blades to have lesions, which eventually kills the whole blade. Root rot can be found in those damaged areas from spring. The disease will rot the roots from the stolons allowing them to float above the lawn. All of these diseases can be controlled with the use of fungicides to prevent the spread of disease organisms to healthy surrounding lawn areas.

This is a good time to start preparing vegetable and flower beds by turning the soil and fumigating to control nematodes and diseases. The natural way to fumigate is to cover the garden beds with clear plastic, allowing the heat to kill these organisms.

If you have poinsettias in your yard you should give them a final pruning this month and then leave them alone for holiday color in December.

September is the last full month you can get away with heavy pruning on all shrubs. The official cutoff date for heavy pruning is October 15 to avoid damage of tender new growth from cold winter temperatures.

After one more month of really hard work October should bring slightly cooler temperatures, less rain and humidity, and a slowed growth rate for your gardens.

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Eileen Ward and her husband, Peter, own and operate Greensward of Marco Inc., a lawn maintenance and landscaping company. Besides completing horticultural courses from the University of Florida, she has a commercial maintenance spray license and is a registered dealer in agricultural products in Florida.